1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for retrieving articles and, in particular, to an apparatus and method for retrieving articles carried by a conveyor on hooked members.
2. Background Information
Apparatus for conveying articles and, in particular, articles supported on hooked members are used in various industries. For example, articles conveyed in an assembly line are frequently supported on hooked members, wherein the hooked members are carried by a conveyor.
In particular, the use of garment storage conveyors in, for example, dry cleaning stores, coat check rooms, employee dressing rooms and inventory storage areas is quite common because conveyors decrease the amount of physical labor associated with garment storage, as well as increase the level of control of the stored garments.
Quite frequently, however, at least portions of the garment conveyor are at an elevated location, thus making difficult manual removal of garments from the conveyor by a person at floor level.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,141,094 describes an apparatus for unloading articles from a conveyor. After garments on the conveyor are sorted into groups based upon, for example, the particular customer to which the garment belongs, all of the garments in a particular group are dropped onto a respective slide rail for subsequent removal and delivery to the customers. In particular, a control unit associates each of the conveyor positions with a particular group in which the garment at that position is contained. The control unit then controls the actuation of a solenoid to release the garments of a particular group onto a respective slide rail, as a function of conveyor position.
The apparatus described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,141,094, however, allocates garments to inclined slide rails as a function of a preselected grouping criteria. In addition, the use of a slide rail alone is not practical in instances in which a garment needs to be retrieved from the conveyor at a relatively high elevation. In particular, a large amount of rail would be required, taking-up a significant amount of floor space and possibly creating a safety hazard.